Learn the third type of German noun plurals, and also how to make a phone call while you are in Germany
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Chuck: Chuck here. Absolute Beginner, Season 1, Lesson 15 – “Using the Phone At a German Hotel” |
| Judith: Hi, my name is [Judith] and I’m joined here by Chuck. |
| Chuck: Hello everyone, and welcome back to GermanPod101. |
| Judith: What are we learning today? |
| Chuck: In this lesson, you’ll find out how the phone works in a German hotel room. |
| Judith: This conversation takes place at a hotel reception. |
| Chuck: The conversation is between Joe and the receptionist. |
| Judith: The speakers are in a business relationship therefore they will be speaking formal German. |
| Chuck: Let’s listen to the conversation. |
| DIALOGUE |
| Rezeption: Hallo Herr Cardigan, wie geht es Ihnen? |
| Joe: Danke, gut. Aber ich bin jetzt etwas müde von dem Ausflug zum Reichstag. |
| Rezeption: Ja, Ausflüge machen müde. |
| Joe: Ja. … Sagen Sie, wie funktioniert das Telefon auf dem Zimmer? |
| Rezeption: Werden Sie Ihre Familie in Kanada anrufen? |
| Joe: Ja. |
| Rezeption: Okay. Drücken Sie die Taste mit dem Stern auf dem Telefon. |
| Joe: Stern, wie die Sterne am Himmel? |
| Rezeption: Haha, ja, aber am Telefon ist es diese Taste hier. |
| Joe: Ah, okay. |
| Rezeption: Dann wählen Sie 001 für Kanada und dann die Telefonnummer. |
| Joe: Okay. Und was kostet ein Anruf? |
| Rezeption: Anrufe kosten 40 Cent pro Minute. |
| Joe: Und wenn meine Familie anruft? Wie geht das? |
| Rezeption: Das ist kein Problem. Sie ruft hier im Hotel an und ich leite den Anruf auf Ihr Zimmer weiter. |
| Joe: Ah, gut. Danke. |
| Rezeption: Bitte, kein Problem. |
| Reception: Hello Mr Cardigan, how are you? |
| Joe: Thanks, I'm well. But I am a bit tired now from the excursion to the Reichstag. |
| Reception: Yes, trips make you tired. |
| Joe: Yes. Tell me, how does the phone work in the room? |
| Reception: Are you going to call your family in Canada? |
| Joe: Yes. |
| Reception: Okay. Press the button with the star on the phone. |
| Joe: Star, like the stars in the sky? |
| Reception: Haha, yes, but on the phone it's this button here. |
| Joe: Ah, okay. |
| Reception: Then dial 001 for Canada and then the phone number. |
| Joe: Okay. And what does a call cost? |
| Reception: Calls cost 40 cents a minute. |
| Joe: And if my family calls? How does that work? |
| Reception: That is no problem. They call the hotel and I transfer the call to your room. |
| Joe: Ah, good. Thanks. |
| Reception: You're welcome, it's no problem. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Chuck: Oh, I noticed something interesting in our dialogue! |
| Judith: Yeah? |
| Chuck: Yeah! They said they called 001, it’s the same number for the United States. |
| Judith: Okay. |
| Chuck: Well actually, what you’re doing is dialing 00 to make an international call and then you dial the country code which is 1 for the United States and Canada. |
| Judith: Yes, strange that they will share the same country code. |
| Chuck: Yeah, I think they’re just side connected and using the same system. |
| Judith: Can be. |
| Chuck: Or if you want to call anyone in Germany you just need to dial zero first. |
| Judith: Yes, zero for different city, it’s part of the city code already or if you call someone in the same city then you don’t need the zero, but we talked about that in detail before, now how do you actually go about calling? I mean, you call someone then what? |
| Chuck: I wait for it to ring and then to pick up… |
| Judith: Okay and then? |
| Chuck: I guess I’d say my name. |
| Judith: Yes, really important. I don’t think many Americans know that but in Germany you’re supposed to say your name, usually even instead of a greeting but at least combine it with a greeting and say your name. That’s really important so people know who’s calling. |
| Chuck: Yeah, if you ever make an international call to Germany, you’d notice this too, probably. They just pick up their phone and say their name. |
| Judith: Yes, it’s a really efficient system as you’d expect. |
| Chuck: Yep. |
| Judith: You can immediately know if you’ve called the wrong person, if you’re talking with the younger brother of the person you’re actually trying to reach, things like that. |
| Chuck: I guess that because two family members can have similar voices, too. You don’t want to start ask the girl you met, ask her mother on a date. It saves all the embarrassment. |
| Judith: Yes. It’s not just common courtesy it also distinguishes you from the people that have no business calling like telemarketers. Telemarketers are notorious for refusing to reveal their name. |
| Chuck: And also note that if you want to talk to someone else in the household, you should say your name before you ask for the phone to be passed to that person. If you want to be really polite, you can even have a quick conversation with the person who answers the phone, if you know the matters. |
| Judith: Yes. It’s especially important if you know the person. |
| Chuck: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary for this lesson. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Chuck: The first word is? |
| Judith: [müde] |
| Chuck: “Tired”. |
| Judith: [müde, müde] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Ausflug] |
| Chuck: “Trip” or “ excursion”. |
| Judith: [Ausflug, der Ausflug] this word is masculine and the plural is [Ausflüge] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [funktionieren] |
| Chuck: “To function” or “to work”. |
| Judith: [funktionieren, funktionieren] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Familie] |
| Chuck: “Family”. |
| Judith: [Familie, die Familie] this word is feminine and the plural is [Familien] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [anrufen] |
| Chuck: “To call”. |
| Judith: [anrufen, anrufen] and the “an” splits off”. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [drücken] |
| Chuck: “To press” or “push”. |
| Judith: [drücken, drücken] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Taste] |
| Chuck: “Button” or “key” as in keyboard. |
| Judith: [Taste, die Taste] and the plural is [Tasten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Stern] |
| Chuck: “Star”. |
| Judith: [Stern, der Stern] and the plural is [Sterne] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Himmel] |
| Chuck: “Sky” or “heaven”. |
| Judith: [Himmel, der Himmel] and the plural is the same. |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [wählen] |
| Chuck: “To choose, to vote” or “to dial”. |
| Judith: [wählen, wählen] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Anruf] |
| Chuck: “Call”. |
| Judith: [Anruf, der Anruf] and the plural is [Anrufe] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [pro] |
| Chuck: “Per”. |
| Judith: [pro, pro] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [Minute] |
| Chuck: “Minute”. |
| Judith: [Minute, die Minute] and the plural is [Minuten] |
| Chuck: Next? |
| Judith: [weiterleiten] |
| Chuck: “To ford” or “transfer”. |
| Judith: [weiterleiten, weiterleiten] and the [weiter] splits off. |
| VOCAB AND PHRASE USAGE |
| Chuck: Let’s have a closer look at the usage for some of the words and phrases from this lesson. |
| Judith: The first word is [Ausflug] |
| Chuck: “Trip” or “excursion”. |
| Judith: Note that this is only used for something that lasts less than one day. [Ausflug] cannot be a two-day trip to somewhere. And the other thing is the verb [funktionieren] which we’ve seen today. |
| Chuck: “To function” or “to work”. |
| Judith: Instead of [funktionieren] you can also use [laufen] generally means “to run” or at least “to jog”, but [laufen] can also mean that something is functioning, if you’re just talking about functioning, not functioning you can’t give too many other details but you can say [Es läuft] or [Es läuft nicht] or even [Es läuft gut] |
| Chuck: That works just like in English. “The refrigerator isn’t running.” |
| Judith: Yeah, I guess so. |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Chuck: The grammar focus of this lesson is noun plurals, part two. |
| Judith: Last week, we already learned that a lot of German nouns will add “en” or simply “n” for plural, especially if they’re feminine nouns or if they end in “I” already. |
| Chuck: We’ve already encountered nouns that don’t change at all, such as the ones ending in “er” or “en”. And we learned that the plural article is always [die]. There’s no distinguish between genders. Now, let’s look at another way of forming the plural. |
| Judith: This is type three because we had two types before and for type three, nouns add “I”. For example, in this lesson we’ve seen [der Anruf] |
| Chuck: “The call”. |
| Judith: [die Anrufe] |
| Chuck: “The calls”. |
| Judith: [das Problem] |
| Chuck: “The problem”. |
| Judith: [die Probleme] |
| Chuck: “The problems”. |
| Judith: [der Stern] |
| Chuck: “The star”. |
| Judith: [die Sterne] |
| Chuck: “The stars”. |
| Judith: A special case are the ones that end in “I” and also change their vowel. For example, [der Ausflug, die Ausflüge] |
| Chuck: “The excursions”. Unfortunately it’s not possible to predict which words will change their vowel. That largely depends on the vague sense of vowel harmony. Well, that just about does it for today. |
Outro |
| Judith: Want to test what you just learned? |
| Chuck: Make this lesson’s vocabulary stick by using lesson specific flashcards in the learning center. |
| Judith: There’s a reason everyone uses flashcards. |
| Chuck: Well yeah, they work. |
| Judith: They really do help memorization. |
| Chuck: Where can we get the flashcards from this lesson? |
| Judith: Well, like the flashcards for all the lessons you can get them from GermanPod101.com |
| Chuck: Well that’s easy! Well anyway, see you next week! |
| Judith: [Bis nächste Woche] |
| -- |
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